


Before Coming Home

by Starfleet_Command_Unit_Bi



Series: Coming Home [1]
Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-09
Updated: 2018-07-17
Packaged: 2019-06-07 22:55:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15229773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starfleet_Command_Unit_Bi/pseuds/Starfleet_Command_Unit_Bi
Summary: Prequel to Coming HomeHow Katrina and Gabriel got to where they were before the events of Coming Home





	1. Chapter 1

Katrina Cornwell could still remember the first time that she met Gabriel Lorca. They were at a party, the first one of the year when everyone was just getting to know everyone, and she had been separated from Pippa as the night went on. Neither of the roommates had known it at the time, but that night they met their future spouses. Pippa would bring it up often, mentioning it four times during her matron of honour speech.

A guy had just started to hit on her, not the most pleasant or welcomed thing to happen to her that night and Gabriel had swept in as her ‘saviour’. When the guy had gotten aggressive and punched him in the face, Katrina took him down with a kick to the back of his knees and slapped the back of his neck. Neither of them particularly wanted to stay at the party after that and instead fled to the nearby 24/7 cafe.

“Thanks for helping me earlier,” he grinned over his hot chocolate, a black eye slowly forming. “Whilst I probably wouldn’t have gotten into that mess without you, I definitely wouldn’t have gotten out of that mess without you.”

“No problem,” she replied, taking a sip of her coffee. Even with the oncoming bruises, he was attractive and someone she didn’t mind looking at-probably someone she wouldn’t mind looking at again. “I don’t think I caught your name during the punch-up.”

“Gabriel Lorca. And you are Katrina Cornwell; the woman who corrected a jackass teacher during her first ever lesson and proved him wrong. You’re already quite the legend.”

“And what about you? What makes you so special that everyone at that party were staring at you as you walked past? Any speciality I should know about?”

“Xenobiology. Nothing special about that in the slightest.”

“Then why was everyone staring?”

“Most probably because of my devilish good looks. Although the bruising’s ruined most of the effect by now-so’s the fact that I’m a little bit drunk already. Doesn’t usually suit me; the whole flushed face and lack of filter.”

“Wouldn’t kick you out of bed,” Katrina replied, definitely more drunk than she had thought but more than willing to see where it would take her. Gabriel smirked in a way that would have made her knees go weak if she’d been standing.

“Care to test that theory?”

“How close is your room?”

“Other side of campus. Yours?”

“Five minute walk. Max.”

“I guess that’s where we’re headed,” he said.

They left their drinks half-finished and Kat led the way to her housing block. Gabriel grabbed her hand and she wasn’t sure if it was the hint of alcohol coursing through her veins or the strange turn her night had taken that was the reason but she squeezed it back and smiled at him. Almost bashfully. Very unlike her. 

Their first kiss was outside her door-the hallways deserted since almost everyone was at the party or out doing something else. He tasted like chocolate and whiskey and some sort of fruit she didn’t know the name of and it felt like no other kiss she’d had before. He was soft and gentle but oh-so-firm, like he wanted to push further but didn’t want to stop doing this part. It was endearing, enough to make Kat also want to push further.

Opening her door was difficult as Gabriel decided to keep kissing down her neck and have his hands find the perfect resting place at her waist. Eventually they tumbled through but Kat caught him before he fell to the ground, heaving him back up until they faces were mere millimetres apart and she could feel his short breath on her lips.

“Guess you saved me again, didn’t you?”

Another kiss followed, then another, then another, until they were lying on her bed in their underwear as hands roamed every available inch of skin. Katrina had had sex before, with both long-term boyfriends and the occasional hook-up, but this felt different and not just because they hadn’t gotten to the part where they actually had sex. She just wasn’t in any rush to get there any more. Not with how good it felt to have Gabriel’s hands running through her hair whilst she lay atop him. 

Before they had the chance to take another step towards that ‘further’ place, Pippa burst in through the door. The woman was obviously very drunk, forever the light-weight, and just managed to collapse onto her bed as she fell into a fit of giggles. Evidently they wouldn’t be able to continue what they were doing anymore but Kat wasn’t sure how to sneak Gabriel out without her roommate of only a month noticing and making things awkward. 

“Well, this is … uncomfortable,” Gabriel said after a minute of listening to Pippa giggling, his voice quiet so that the woman in question couldn’t hear.

“I’m sorry about this.”

“No need to be; not your fault. Unless you have a magic plan to sneak me out unnoticed, is there anywhere I can sleep that would make you feel less ... uncomfortable about this whole situation. You know, some people don’t like strangers sleeping in their beds with them.”

“No, stay here. It’s big enough for the both of us and besides, I’m the reason you’re stuck here,” Kat replied, rolling off of him to stare up at her ceiling.

“I think it might be the comedian in the bed over’s fault but thanks about this. I think my roommate managed to take home the guy he’s been crushing on since the first day and I really didn’t want to ruin that for him.”

“Aren’t you ever the gentleman?” Kat teased, eliciting a chuckle.

They talked in hushed voices until the sun began to rise up, until they could barely keep their eyes open anymore and their words were slurred from lack of sleep. Kat told him about both of her parents being in Starfleet and being raised by her grandparents, how she trained to be a therapist, about why she wanted to join Starfleet; to discover. Gabriel told her about growing up on a farm and learning everything he could about all species from all known planets, how he missed his baby brother the most and why he wanted to join Starfleet; to discover.

It was the first time they felt in love, but it would happen many more times before either of them admitted it to themselves, and almost too many times before they finally admitted it to each other.


	2. Chapter 2

Kat woke up staring directly at Gabriel’s bruised face, the man himself still fast asleep. Pippa was still in bed; whenever she got drunk she would sleep into eleven so long as nothing else woke her up. The clock on her bedside table read nine O’clock meaning she still had two hours to sneak him quietly out. Not the easiest thing in the world, considering she could feel her own hangover bearing over and knowing that the second she got out of bed it would be a thousand times worse.

“Hey, wake up,” she whispered, prodding him slightly. It barely stirred him. “Gabriel, wake up. Come on, it’s morning.”

After a bit more prodding and whispering, and a rather forceful shove that she would forever deny happening, he finally opened his eyes and blinked around owlishly. Up close like this, and without alcohol clouding her vision, his eyes were the most amazing shade of blue she had ever seen and Katrina remembered why she wanted to bring him over last night before they were interrupted.

“Morning,” he said, voice raspy with sleep. “How did you sleep?”

“Alright. You?”

“Alright. How’s your roommate? She’s gonna have a killer hangover.”

“Won’t be up for a couple of hours. Want some breakfast or do you just want to just head back to your own room?”

“I’ll have breakfast if you’re offering it.”

They shared an uncomfortably quiet breakfast as Pippa slept soundly in her bed, drunken snores erupting every now and again that made them both snort into their cereal. Kat takes her time to examine the man sitting next to her. Whilst the bruise is fully formed on his face now, she can make out what she couldn’t when she was partially drunk the night before.

Most strikingly of all were his eyes.

Bright blue, like they’d been plucked from a perfect day’s sky, and she could imagine herself getting lost in them for hours. Sleep still clouded them, still clouded her own eyes and evidently her own judgement, but there was something about them that was just so alluring she couldn’t stop herself from glancing up repeatedly. Gabriel wasn’t much better; looking from his cereal every few seconds to get a glimpse and then ducking back down again with a smirk. Kat felt like she was a kid in middle school again, dealing with a first crush. She couldn’t remember actually doing this with her first crush in middle school but the sentiment was there nonetheless. 

“I’m going to get going,” he sighed once the bowls had been cleared away. “Won’t be walking in on anything by now, I hope, and your roommate will be awake soon.”

“Of course,” she replied. “Sorry about last night. And this morning.”

“Nothing to worry about. But if you want to make it up to me, we could grab a drink later? Back at the coffee shop?” Gabriel offered and Katrina found herself grinning at the idea.

“Tomorrow morning? Ten?”

“It’s a date.”

He was gone before Katrina could stop him, or correct him. But when she sat down on her bed, sheets still smelling of him, she found that she couldn’t bring herself to mind that much. She was against dating at the Academy and if it ended badly, it wasn’t as though they shared any classes together. The worst that could happen was that they would have to be careful where they went at parties and she couldn’t see that being much of a problem.

“Hey, Kat?” Philippa asked groggily, sitting up in bed whilst cocooned in a nest of blankets. “Did you really beat a guy up last night?”

“Not exactly.”

“What do you mean ‘not exactly’? What the hell did you do and are we banned from going to those parties again? ‘Cause last night was fun.”

“Given the look of you, I’m impressed you remember last night,” Kat teased, grabbing the painkillers and some toast for her roommate. “Do anything fun? Anyone?”

She was replied with a pillow to the face and soon they were simply getting ready for their day, Pippa a lot slower than she usually was and wincing whenever anything was a bit too loud. Kat suggested a hangover cure from the medicine cupboard down the hall but was refused, Pippa claiming that they just made her feel worse than normal and that there was no point in getting that wasted if you weren’t going to suffer for it afterwards. A muttered attempt at explaining karma occurred before abandoned.

It was a Saturday, a fact that many of the most ‘tired’ students were most probably very grateful for, which meant that Kat had no lessons. With most of her classwork out of the way before the party, not expecting the turn of events that had happened, she had far too much time on her hands to think about the ‘date’ she was going on. No matter her training in psychology and everything she knew about overthinking and anxiety, it never stopped her from actually doing it. The only benefit was that she was a bit more sympathetic with her patients when they explained how they were feeling. 

There was no way she was telling Pippa what had gone down. She had spent most of the morning making sure that her roommate wouldn’t find out and she wouldn’t spoil all of that effort as a way of distracting herself. But she needed someone to vent to and, if she changed a bit of her story, no one could judge her for it and no one would even know. Apart from Gabriel. But now she was overthinking again.

“So other than you ‘not exactly’ beating a guy up, what did you do last night?” Pippa asked over lunch, surrounding by stacks of PADDs for homework. “‘Cause that’s all anyone is talking about when I asked about you.”

“Well, after the incident, the other guy who got punched went out for coffee,” Kat explained, not quite lying. “We’ve got a date tomorrow morning. Same coffee shop at ten. What about you? If I remember rightly, and you definitely do not, you abandoned me for someone. Anything interesting happen? Will I be expecting a sock on the door at some point in the future?”

“We got drunk, made out and then got even more drunk. As the lightweight that I am-”

“Your words, not mine.”

“AS THE LIGHTWEIGHT THAT I AM, Asfenah dropped me off at the dorms and then the girl from downstairs helped me get up without breaking any bones. Whilst we do not have any pre-arranged meetings like you and your mystery man, we do share like six classes together. On that note, who was it that you’re going on a date with?”

“Gabriel Lorca.”

“No way! He’s in a bunch of my classes as well! Never really pegged him as your type; he seemed a little too reckless during some of the practicals.”

“Seemed nice enough last night. And never say that you ‘pegged’ a guy unless you want me to bring it up at every possible moment.”


End file.
